Creating and maintaining a blog is a great way to provide content for websites, demonstrating that the website is active, that information is current and that site owners are authorities in their fields. While the idea that content is king is popular with regard to websites, consider not only your content but your content strategy to make the most of SEO opportunities.

If you have a website but don’t have a blog, consider creating one: A blog is a great way to connect with people who share your interests, or to publicize your site or product. — Google’s Webmaster Guidelines

Blogging at random will generate limited results for site owners. A focused blogging strategy that incorporates on carefully considered topics, however, will enable you to maximize your results with supercharged SEO. Creating a blog series on a carefully chosen theme will save you time and effort, and has the potential to dramatically improve your ranking on search engines. Better search engine ranking will enable more people searching for your products or services to find you rather than your competition.

Among the things that Google considers when ranking websites are subject relevance and the number of pages on those subjects. Uploading a blog series, therefore, is a great way to increase your content while ensuring that it is thematically coherent and appropriately organized to be seen and appreciated by Google as well as other search engines.

Here are four steps for creating a blog series with killer SEO to drive traffic to your website.

1. Determine a Theme

Have a heart to heart with yourself and consider what your website is really about. What is its core subject and what are you providing for your visitors? You may find that your website covers more than one subject or that it satisfies a number of needs for potential customers. Clearly identify what these are, as this is the first stage in matching your content to the people who would benefit from it.

Use Google Analytics or a similar tool to work out what your visitors were searching for when they were directed to your site. You can use this information to create blog posts that tap directly into this existing stream of visitors. You may also consider using SEMRush’s top pages report to see which of your pages are ranking in search results.

SEMRush’s Top Organic Content Report

By thinking about which of your posts and pages have been most popular historically, you can determine what subject areas to focus on. Work smarter not harder. Resist the temptation to create off-topic content, which will have the effect of diluting any existing high-ranking content already available on your site. Creating content for SEO only works in your favor if it remains true to your theme or themes.

2. Research Topics on that Theme

Now that you know what subject area you will cover in your blog series, use some tools to research popular topics on that theme.

Ubersuggest is a free, fast and effective online tool that can help you uncover related topics that are in demand. Type in a search term that your visitors have been searching for or that you consider being a keyword that your typical visitor might use and this tool will generate keyword variations and suggestions based on that root keyword. Use this to generate ideas for focused, relevant blog content that may appeal to your visitors.

Tools like Buzzsumo can help you find content that’s working for competitors (as well as the SEMRush tool mentioned above). Type in a keyword or keyphrase and Buzzsumo will provide you with articles that incorporated those keywords and did well on other websites. You will also learn how many times the articles were shared and via which social media networks, so you can use a competitor’s proven success to create your own content that will appeal to your audience.

Buzz Sumo Top Social Content Report

In addition, performing Google searches on relevant topics can help you figure out where the gaps are so you can make something even better that what is already ranking.

3. Create a Call-to-Action

Research has shown that if you want a website visitor to do something, your success rate is dramatically improved by asking them directly. This can be as simple as having a comment or share button, or it could be asking for an email address in return for a subscription or download.

For your blog series, having your call to action be a premium piece of content on the site’s subject (for example, a white paper, a checklist or a research report) is a great place to start.

Whether in-line text or an attractive button, your call to action should appear on each of your blog pages and they should link to the landing page for the offer.

4. Promote Each Post of the Series

Remember that your blog content will be available to visitors as long as your site exists, but to make the most of it, you need to stoke that fire. Don’t just post it and sit back in front of web analytics! Tell people that it exists, what it will do for them and broadcast the link on your social media platforms and utilize content advertising to gain a new audience.

Don’t make the mistake many websites do and churn and burn through your content. Promote each of your blog posts and focus your attention on the series for 1–3 months. Then return to them again in another 1–3 months to see if they can be improved upon.

The strategy of increasing your site’s content on relevant topics through a blog series provides you with more opportunities for SEO because it ensures your site remains focused and thematically well-organized.

In summary:

Work out the major theme or themes of your website and compare these to online searches that your visitors perform and to your existing posts that have done well. How much of your existing content is really in line with your site’s theme? Use this information and available online tools such as Ubersuggest,Buzzsumo, and Google searches in order to generate ideas for a suitable, traffic-garnering topic for your blog series.

Don’t forget to engage with your visitors by including a call to action offering something valuable. Your offer and you should have at least one, might be a white paper, a video or webinar, a template, a checklist or a research report).

Create at least four blog posts for your series. Promote each blog post in your series and focus on your chosen theme for 1 to 3 months to make the most of your focused content and the potential for SEO to drive more traffic to your website.